The present invention is generally concerned with mobile radiocommunication systems.
The present invention is more particularly concerned with power control techniques used in such systems to improve performances (in terms of quality of service, of capacity, . . . etc.).
The present invention is in particular applicable to mobile radiocommunication systems of CDMA (“Code Division Multiple Access”) type. In particular, the present invention is applicable to UMTS (“Universal Mobile Telecommunication System”).
As is known, CDMA systems use two types of power control techniques, a so-called open-loop power control technique, and a so-called closed loop power control technique (also called hereinafter CLPC). These power control techniques may be recalled for example for the uplink transmission direction, i.e. from MS (“Mobile Station”) to BTS (“Base Transceiver Station”). In the open-loop power control, a MS transmit power is controlled based on the power received by this MS from a BTS. In the CLPC, a MS transmit power is controlled based on the transmission quality of the link between this MS and a BTS, as estimated at this BTS.
The transmission quality of a link between a MS and a BTS depends on the ratio of the received signal power and the interference power, also called SIR (Signal-to-Interference Ratio). When the SIR of a MS is low, or equivalently when the powers of the other MSs are much higher than its power, its performances dramatically decrease. The CLPC algorithm enables to keep the SIR of each user as constant as possible.
The principle of the CLPC algorithm is that the BTS periodically estimates the SIR of the received signal from each MS, and compares this estimated SIR to a target SIR (SIRtarget). If the estimated SIR is lower than the target SIR, the BTS sends a power control command to the MS, for the MS to increase its transmit power. Otherwise, the BTS sends a power control command to the MS, for the MS to decrease its transmit power. The target SIR is chosen by the BTS as a function of the required quality of service. The target SIR may itself be adjusted according to a quality of service target value, by a slower loop also called outer loop as opposed to the preceding one called inner loop.
Transmission rate in such systems may be made variable, for various reasons, such as for example:                use of variable rate services, such as for example data packet services,        transmission in compressed mode, whereby informations are momentarily transmitted at a rate higher than necessary in order to leave some periods idle for performing other tasks (such as for example radio measurements for handover preparation reasons, in particular inter-frequency handover),        optimisation of system performances (a reduction in the transmission rate, wherever possible, enabling to improve quality and/or capacity),        . . . etc.        
As is known, in CDMA systems the transmission rate may be made variable by spreading the informations to be transmitted with a variable spreading factor. The lower the spreading factor, the higher the transmission rate.
Besides, and as also known, the higher the transmission rate, the higher the required transmit power (for a same quality of service).
However, in a system including a CLPC algorithm of the above-recalled type, it may take a relatively long time to reach the new required power each time there is a change in the transmission rate, for various reasons including in particular the time it takes for the outer loop to adjust the target SIR accordingly, or the fact that the transmit power is adjusted in a stepwise manner by the inner loop.
The CLPC algorithm may also be adapted, to make this time as short as possible. To this end, EP 0 886 389 teaches to change the transmit power in an inverse proportion to the variation of the spreading factor.